Most commercial signs do not provide all of the information that a consumer may need to make an informed decision. For example, real estate “for sale” or “for rent” signs contain only the brokerage company and the listing agent's contact number. Some agents supplement the signs with flyers containing additional information placed in a box below the signs. However, these flyers are usually limited to a few sheets of paper and generally do not provide the level of detailed information that a shopper may be looking for.
As an alternative or in addition to the flyers, a real estate agent may place the same or additional details about a property on a public communications network such as the Internet and provide an interested party with a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) (i.e., a string of characters that acts as a webpage address where the relevant information may be found). The agent may provide the URL on a commercial sign or on flyers. However, interested parties often lack the time or tools to transcribe a long URL while driving or walking by a commercial sign.
As it has been suggested in US Patent Application No. 2011/10137706, to address the above problem, an agent can print a commercial sign bearing a QR code so that potential buyers can scan the code with their smartphones and be directed to a URL resolving to a website with information about a real estate offering. A QR code is a type of two-dimensional barcode or matrix that allows interested parties to access a specific URL by simply scanning the code with a suitable scanning device. This way, detailed information which cannot fit on limited space advertising material (e.g., flyers or signs) can be provided to the interested parties.
To properly scan a QR code, the scanning device needs to be at a specific proximity to the QR code displayed on a commercial sign. For example, a 2×2 cm barcode can only be scanned from less than 10 cm away, with a scanning device held in stationary position. As such, in the scenario discussed above an interested person, if driving, must park and exit his vehicle, and be within one or two feet of the commercial sign in order to scan the QR code that has been placed on or incorporated in the sign. The steps involved in scanning the code are typically inconvenient and sometimes problematic for the less agile or those with mobility restrictions.